I was a high school sophomore or junior when she phoned excitedly that Saturday afternoon. Although I had
been a science-fiction buff ever since I can remember, and probably had seen the film a half-dozen
times before, my grandmother never was and never had. I got up from the sofa and, as I tuned into
the station, I immediately recognized one of my favorite movies as a kid:
Earth vs. The Flying
Saucers. Within minutes, a classic saucer-shaped craft would slice
the Washington Monument in two. I ate it up.

It's not that I looked forward to the prospect of interplanetary war. But for years I had yearned
for a real saucer to land in Washington or New York, so that what I knew to be the hidden truth
would finally come out. I was a firm believer in UFOs and alien visitations. And in large part
I can thank my strait-arrow grandmother for that.

I was probably ten years old or so when she first told me about what she, my grandfather, and uncle
had seen around 1950 -- the year I was born -- at a time when UFOs were in the news on a fairly
regular basis. Driving home one Sunday afternoon from Frederick, Maryland, to Baltimore, my uncle,
who was sitting in the back seat, noticed something odd in the sky. My grandfather, upon seeing it
himself, pulled the car over to the side of the road. As all three sat watching the noiseless object
flutter about, within a minute or so it would disappear from their field of view. They also noticed
that a couple of other cars had pulled over to watch as well.

Although my uncle has described its shape as that of a "stovepipe," and assumes that the object was
an experimental aircraft of some sort, my grandmother recalled the shape quite differently (I don't
remember my grandfather ever adding anything to her version). And I was sufficiently impressed by
her story that, by the time she called me that day in 1966 or 1967, not only was I a dues-paying
member of the largest pro-UFO organization in the country, I was its Youth Council representative
for the state of Maryland.

The group was known as NICAP -- the National
Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena -- based in Washington, D.C. The News American
(Baltimore's now-defunct secondary newspaper) even ran a brief story about my appointment,
"Student Helps Trace UFOs," accompanied
by my photo. And a friend wrote an article,
"Student seeks saucer sighting truth,"
for our high school newspaper. I can even remember my first college English composition being about UFOs.
[Here and here are two replies
from then-Congressman Gerald Ford in response to a letter I sent him in 1966.]

It wasn't for another decade -- when I took some time off in 1977 between my internship and my first
year of internal medicine residency to read, travel, etc. -- that my metamorphosis from UFO believer
to semiprofessional skeptic began in earnest. I had already dropped out of NICAP five years earlier,
when its newsletter veered embarrassingly toward sensationalism. But one day I happened to see an
article on UFOs in the Baltimore Sun, in which
Philip Klass was quoted. Klass had
helped to found the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal
(CSICOP) the year before. [CSICOP has since been renamed CSI
(Committee for Skeptical Inquiry).]

I had purchased Klass' book UFOs: Identified during my years of UFO activism, just
so I could have a "skeptical" book among my collection of UFO paraphernalia. I decided that it was
time to reread it. And this time around, I found it to be quite persuasive. But the book concentrated
on only a small subset of UFO reports -- those involving glowing objects that Klass thought might be
explainable as something in the "plasma" family, a rare electrical atmospheric phenomenon related to
ball lightning. Thus, I was motivated to write to him with questions about several classic cases
which, if genuine, seemed explainable to me only as extraterrestrial spacecraft.

That same week, I decided to buy The Hynek UFO Report, and sent a three-page letter to
Dr. J. Allen Hynek, the country's premier UFO
proponent and founder of the Center for UFO Studies. I told
Hynek that his new book "left me as perplexed as ever about what, other than hoaxes or [ET]
spacecraft, could possibly account for some of [his] better cases." I zeroed in with pointed
questions about several classic UFO photographs. And I went on at some length about Klass' book,
mentioning that although it concentrated on plasma-type reports, "each time I arrived at a passage
which I found particularly weak, or which evoked a specific question in my mind, the following
paragraph would either admit the weakness of that particular statement, or contain clarifying
material to answer my question."

I soon received in the mail a paperback edition of Klass' newer book covering many of the most
famous "unexplained" cases, UFOs: Explained, which I never even knew about. In it,
Klass inserted a note inviting me to write back if the book didn't answer all my questions, adding
that I could reimburse him the book's $2.45 cost if I found it worthy. At about the same time, I
received from Hynek a two-page letter whose first paragraph read: "Thank you for your most
excellent letter of December 27th. Because you have taken the time to write in considerable detail,
I am putting your letter ahead of the stack to acknowledge it."

But, as they say, the Devil is in the details. Despite their comparable degree of graciousness in
replying to my inquiries, the contrast between the substance of their responses helped spur the
completion of my metamorphosis from a now-somewhat-skeptical believer to a full-blooded skeptic.

Though he prioritized my letter because of its "considerable detail," Hynek's reply failed to
address any of my questions about the specific cases endorsed in his book. "As it stands now,"
Hynek told me, "I continue to have questions, not answers." His lengthiest paragraph dealt with my
favorable comments about the work of Philip Klass. From that discussion:

I wonder if you are aware that in his second book, UFOs EXPLAINED, [Klass] refers not at all to his
first book, UFOs IDENTIFIED, in which the plasma theory was put forth, and now resorts almost
entirely to considering UFO reports as hoaxes, hallucinations, etc. . . . The plasma theory was so
effectively shot down that . . . he appears embarrassed [by] UFOs IDENTIFIED. . . . I urge you to
read UFOs EXPLAINED and to note in particular [how] when he can't find serious evidence, he resorts
to character smearing. This is hardly the scientific method.

I devoured UFOs: Explained in a single day. And in my four-page reply to Hynek, I
rebutted his letter point by point. For example, regarding his assertion that Klass' second book "refers
not at all to his first":

This is simply not so. On pp. 111-112 (paperback, 1976) he mentions the name of the book, lists the
publication information, and summarizes the plasma-family theory. On p. 119 he again mentions the
book by name, while discussing a plasma-like case (which was probably a hoax). Page 121 also contains
the name of the book, and Chapter 17 deals with the possibility that the tail of a meteor, under
certain conditions, might generate plasmas. In addition, the Socorro and Hill chapters both contain
footnoted references to his first book, which he mentions by name, and to which he refers the reader
for additional details.

And as for Hynek's charge that Klass "now resorts almost entirely to considering UFO reports as
hoaxes, hallucinations, etc.":

After carefully reading the book, I cannot cite a single example in which a hallucination was
alleged. As for hoaxes, he does indeed invoke this explanation for a number of cases, including the
Trent photo case, to which you neglected to address
yourself in your letter, despite my specific questions to you about it. . . . [But] his book is
[also] replete with examples of the following:

. . . It seems to me that when Klass offers "answers," they are simply unwelcomed by you, despite
the persuasiveness of his arguments. . . . Since, at least to this reader, you discard the possible
answers, it is not surprising that, as you are forced to admit, you have none.

Yes, the Devil is indeed in the details. Phil Klass is considered the Devil incarnate by many in the
pro-UFO community. And he has been consumed by the details ever since getting caught in the UFO
quagmire more than thirty years ago. When I sent him a copy of my correspondence with Hynek, he replied
in part:

It was 7 p.m. before I left the office, exhausted from a hard day probing a very controversial
international aviation issue, and by a cold and hacking cough that should have sent me to bed but for the press of Aviation Week business.

But your letter [to Hynek] has moved me almost to tears and so I must respond tonight and express my
thanks.

Soon after I entered the "Strange Land of UFOria," I realized that I had undertaken a largely
thankless task. That for most people, who think the whole issue is nonsense, I was on a fool's
errand, while for those who are interested and who generally are "believers," my efforts would evoke
only harsh criticism. . . .

What you have dared to say to the "Galileo of UFOlogy" [as Hynek had been dubbed in a recent issue
of Newsweek] has long needed to be said. . . . You are the first, to my knowledge, to
brazenly comment that the Emperor is NAKED!

It turned out that Klass was scheduled to deliver a lecture on UFOs at the University of Delaware in
several months. Living in DC, and with me in Baltimore, Klass suggested that he pick me up on his
way, so that we could talk UFOs at length. That we did, and we became lifelong friends in the
process. It was during that trip that Klass formally introduced me to the concept of "critical
thinking," which had previously occupied a black hole in my education, despite a Phi Beta Kappa key
and medical degree.

In 1976 Klass had been selected as one of the first Fellows of
CSICOP. During our trip he told me about their journal,
Skeptical Inquirer (originally named The Zetetic ), and I soon began
subscribing and attending CSICOP's national conferences. Thanks to Klass and CSICOP, by late 1978 I
would find myself becoming inexorably drawn into the "paranormal" quagmire.